


platitudes and resolutions

by kickedshins



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Could Be Canon, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, New Year's Eve, Season/Series 03, it's about the, jacobi voice fuckkk do i actually LIKE these dipshits?, maxwell voice yeah i know theyre great it sucks, no actually relationships but heavily implied crushes, takes place between e34 and e35, which is canonically new years during the timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25833538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickedshins/pseuds/kickedshins
Summary: Jacobi knows that if push came to shove, there’s no way in hell he’d put the crew around him in front of Kepler, so this is all a moot point anyway. Hypotheticals, speculation. Jacobi doesn’t deal in variables. Jacobi doesn’t solve for x.“One,” Hera says. She plays the sound of a party horn lightly over the speakers.“Happy New Year!” everyone shouts together, and, for a moment, all the tension in the room dissipates. They’re just six people and one AI unit trapped seven-point-eight lightyears from home, and they’ve made it this far. None of them can know for sure what the next year will bring, but, for better or worse, they’re going to be facing it together.orIt's New Year's Eve in space, and Maxwell and Jacobi come to the realization that, even though they know they're not supposed to get attached to the crew of the Hephaestus, they might really enjoy spending time with them.
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi & Alana Maxwell
Comments: 20
Kudos: 46





	platitudes and resolutions

**Author's Note:**

> hi and welcome to uhhh something i did NOT realize would end up being this long. anyway enjoy these six lovely people and one lovely AI having a super normal new years eve in space. hilbert isn't in it because i always forget he's around lmfao anyway enjoy!

It’s rare that anyone gets downtime aboard the _Hephaestus_ , but Maxwell and Jacobi have been blissfully unburdened and relaxing in their sleeping quarters for the past hour or so. Jacobi wants to be mildly concerned by the fact that Kepler seems to be MIA, but he’s honestly too grateful for a break to bring himself to care.

He stretches, and he can hear his back pop. “Man,” he groans, “you’d think I’d feel less like a damn geriatric in a place where gravity can’t push down on my spine.”  
“Grandpa,” Maxwell says affectionately. She’s focused on her laptop, keys clattering as she types.

“You just wait,” Jacobi threatens. “Give it a few years and you’ll be feeling what I’m feeling, and then I’ll laugh at your pain and suffering.”

“Mmm,” Maxwell hums. “But by that point, you’ll have gotten older, too, and therefore will be suffering from even _more_ back pain.”

“You raise a good point,” Jacobi admits. “However, I’ll also be used to experiencing back pain at that point, whereas for you, it’ll be your first foray into this hellhole, and you’ll be woefully underprepared, and I’ll delight in your misery so much that it’ll bring me to tears.”

“And you wonder why you can’t hold a steady relationship.”

“Hey! I’d say my secrecy about my covert job and constant relocation have more to do with that than my very vocal expressions of sadism.”

“I really don’t need to know,” Maxwell says, and ignores Jacobi as he sputters out a protest. She frowns and hits the delete key a few times in rapid succession. “Ugh. Debugging Hera should not be as neverending of a process as it is.”

“I’d offer to help, but we both know I’d be much more of a hindrance than anything.”

“Yeah, well, you’d never trust me with even potassium and water, so I feel okay about saying you can stay far, far away from my programming. I just— argh!”

“What’s wrong?” asks Jacobi. He pushes down from the ceiling and lands in a crouch at her side, grabbing one of the bars on the ground to hold himself in place. In zero gravity, her hair goes everywhere, blue-streaked and curly, and it knocks against his face as he peers over her shoulder to get a glimpse at her screen.

“It should be… I think I’m missing some sort of… Ah, fuck,” Maxwell sighs. “I don’t– I don’t know.”

Maxwell isn’t one to readily admit something like that. None of them are, really, but especially not Maxwell. Too young, too passionate, too full of a desire to prove that she can go it alone. She’s capable, sure, much more capable than Jacobi was at her age, and much more capable than almost anyone he’s ever met, but she’s still a human. He thinks, sometimes, that she spends so long with her robots that she forgets she’s not one of them. That it’s okay for her to ask for help.

A voice in his head says _Jacobi, you hypocrite_ , and he mentally flips it off.

“Do you wanna bounce any ideas off of me?” Jacobi offers. They do that sometimes when they’re stuck, just talk out loud to each other. It’s helpful to verbalize the issue and ramble his way to a solution. 

Maxwell shakes her head. “No, not now, but thanks. Maybe later. It’s… I should be able to do this, you know?” She sounds frustrated. Tired. “There’s something in there that I can’t figure out yet, but I will. I have to.”

“You care a lot for Hera,” Jacobi says. He brushes her hair back behind her ear. It doesn’t stay for long, but it’s long enough that he can rest his chin on her shoulder, feel her glasses press into the side of his face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice vibrates through her throat and collarbone, and Jacobi can feel it in his temples.

“Nothing,” Jacobi says innocently.

Maxwell reaches across herself to flick him in the head. “Don’t you have something to blow up or someone to kill?”

“Not if Kepler continues to not give us anything to do. Which, hey, I am not complaining about. I’m still feeling the exhaustion from the all-nighter we pulled a few nights ago. My fuckin’ back,” he complains, twisting again until the tension releases from his spine. “Ah, that’s better.”

“Yeah, your night with the boys. How was that?”

“Maxwell. You did not need to say “your night with the boys” like that. It was as PG as anything could ever be, unless you count my calling someone a pet name necessitates a content warning.”

She laughs, and refocuses in on her coding. In his periphery, Jacobi can see her eyes loosen out of a squint, sees her brow relax, and knows she’s gotten past whatever temporary issue her work was giving her. “Well, how was it?”

Jacobi shrugs. “It was fine. Eiffel’s… I hadn’t spent a lot of time with him on the _Hephaestus_ one-on-one, and he’s certainly different here and with the rest of his crew than he was with us here on the _Urania_ . Part of that’s probably because he’s no longer three steps away from death at any given moment, but. Regardless.” He pushes backward, flipping through the air away from Maxwell until he collides into his bed with a soft _oof_ , and clings to it for stagnancy. “And how about you? Got any thoughts?”

Maxwell doesn’t look up from her typing. “Generally, yeah, I do have thoughts, but you’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Jacobi aims a glare at the back of her blissfully unaware head. “I meant about this. That all-nighter Kepler had us pulling when I was with him and Eiffel and you were with everyone else. Them. The _Hephaestus_ crew. The new kids.”

“They’re older than you,” Maxwell says. She can recite their birthdates from memory, and he can, too. They know more about the crew of the _Hephaestus_ than the crew of the _Hephaestus_ knows about them, but it’s still not a lot. They were given a dossier that had contained as much info as Kepler and whoever else had deemed necessary, and they know that info like the back of their hand, and that’s it. Jacobi knows their birthdays, but he doesn’t know why any of them are here. That’s not necessary information. Far too personal. Far too humanizing.

“Eiffel isn’t,” says Jacobi. “I’m older than him by a few months. Hera, too. That one’s by more than a few years. Plus, “new kid” is more of a state of mind. I didn’t mean that they’re actually children.”

“Technically, we’re the new kids.” Maxwell continues her argument smugly, smile audible in her voice. “We’re the ones who crashed over there—” she gestures vaguely out from the _Urania_ , towards the _Hephaestus_ “—not the other way around.”

“Answer the damn question, Maxwell.”

She closes her computer with a snap and lets it go. It floats out of her grasp, hanging in the air, and she follows it, kicking out of her chair and rotating slowly towards him. Her hands are behind her head, and her glasses slip off her nose, falling upwards, held within reach only by the chain they’re attached to that keeps them around her neck.

Jacobi had laughed at that, back on Earth. He’d called them her old people glasses, and she’d said something about him being the old person, and he’d shoved her, and he does that again, now. She won’t answer, so he gets closer to her and pushes her, and she goes flying away. 

Everything’s unstable up here. Unanchored, unbound. Jacobi has glasses, too, but he doesn’t keep them on a chain, and he usually doesn’t wear them, because they never stay on his face. They’re shoved into one the drawers that are strapped above his bed, and they are more trouble than they’re worth. 

Maxwell’s always been smarter than him, more practical. Maxwell keeps her objects of necessity close. Maxwell keeps herself clearsighted.

“I don’t know,” Maxwell says. “We haven’t known them for long.”

“Still. Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have opinions on them?”

She shrugs. Sends her blue-streaked hair flying upwards, curls twisting across her face. “I’m non-judgemental. It takes time for me to form opinions.”

“See, now, that’s just bullshit.”

Maxwell laughs. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. Yes, Jacobi, I have opinions on them. I’m fine with them. There are worse groups of people to spend time with. If we’re talking about that night a few days ago during which you and Kepler and Eiffel were staked out in the comms room, I spent that time playing a board game with the women—and with Hilbert, too, I guess, but I honestly forgot he was there for most of the time—and that was… it was fun.” An expression caught between realization and horror crosses her face, and she sits up a little bit straighter in mid-air, and she says, “Oh, Jesus, it was _fun_.”

Jacobi snorts. “You sound disgusted.”

“Well, I am!” Maxwell insists. “I’m not supposed to– to _like_ them. Tolerate, sure, but like them?”

“As if you haven’t been sweet on Hera since day one.”

Maxwell pulls herself towards Jacobi and kicks him in the chest. There’s not a lot of force to it, but nevertheless, he goes sprawling backward. “Ow,” he says when he hits the wall, and then he says it again, louder, when she doesn’t react.

“That’s not what I mean,” Maxwell says. “I mean that we’re supposed to be, y’know, indifferent to them. Appreciate them for their usefulness and understand that the aforementioned usefulness might have an expiration date. And they’re supposed to like us, sure, and hopefully even trust us, if we’re really good at our jobs, but that affection is not supposed to be reciprocal.”

Jacobi shrugs. “I don’t think it’s the end of the world if you played a board game with the girls for a bit.”

“Women, Daniel, we’re all grown-ups, and your patronizing tone is not appreciated.”

“Technically,” Jacobi says, mirroring Maxwell’s tone from earlier to a near-perfect degree, “Hera’s a child. Oh, you cradle-robber, you.”

“Shut up,” Maxwell groans. “I’d kick you again if you were within kicking reach.”

“Really, though,” Jacobi continues, “it’s not a big deal if you had some fun.”

“Not _yet_ ,” Maxwell counters.

“Not ever. It can’t be a big deal. You understand why it can’t be a big deal, right?” Jacobi asks, voice deadly serious.

“Yes, I understand. And, no, you don’t need to worry about me teaming up with the _Hephaestus_ crew and staging a coup, or something,” Maxwell says, and Jacobi’s thankful that they took down Hera’s audio receptors in here. “You know I’d never do that to Kepler. You know I’d never do that to you.”

“I know,” Jacobi says softly. “Still.” He grins, lopsided and wide. “It’s a nice ego boost to hear out loud that you’d pick me over your robot girlfriend.”

“Not my girlfriend!”

“Not _yet_ ,” Jacobi parrots, laughing at her disapproving pout.

“Besides, it’s not as if you’re without your soft spots,” Maxwell says, pointing an adjudicating finger at him.

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” Maxwell hums. She snags her computer from its suspension in mid-air and opens it back up. Her fingers clack against the keyboard at a near-inhuman speed, and she pretends to not hear his confused noises over the din.

Jacobi pulls himself over to her and pulls her computer straight out of her hands. It’s not that difficult, because Jacobi has been trained a lot more thoroughly for combat and fieldwork in general than Maxwell has, so she’s not as strong as he is.

“Hey!” She grabs at the air where her computer once was.

“‘Oh, nothing’? What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jacobi demands.

“It’s just. Well. We haven’t spent a lot of time with the _Hephaestus_ crew, but already you and Lovelace seem to get along.”

“Are you implying I feel the same way about her as you do Hera? I’m gay, Alana,” he says flatly.

“Yeah, we all know that, idiot.” Maxwell tries to tug her computer out of his grasp, but he holds tight to it.

“Not all of us,” Jacobi mutters.

“I’m begging you to shut up about Kepler for just one day.”

Jacobi yanks the computer, hard, and Maxwell goes flying backward as he wrenches it from her hands. “Serves you right,” he taunts.

“Don’t obfuscate.”

“Don’t use words I don’t understand.”

“Don’t play dumb. I know you know what obfuscate means.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jacobi concedes, lifting his hands in surrender. “What about me and Lovelace?”

“Just that you two seem to get along.” Maxwell finds purchase on a bar on the side of the ship and rights herself. “Again, it’s not a problem unless you’re making it a problem, but—”

“You’re jealous!” Jacobi gasps. 

He knows she isn’t. She doesn’t have any reason to be jealous, and, besides, she’d be a lot more vocal about it if she _was_ jealous, but it feels criminal to admit that he’s becoming friends with one of the _Hephaestus_ crew members. He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he finds these people enjoyable. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s thought about trying to talk them over to his and Maxwell’s side. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s worried about keeping himself grounded, that he’s worried about straying from the proper path, that he’s worried he’ll get too attached to this ragtag crew and their run-down station. 

But Maxwell can see through his bullshit better than he himself can at times, so it’s either own up to having real feelings, or play up the drama. Jacobi’s pretty damn good at playing up the drama. 

“Jealous? What is there to even be jealous of?” Maxwell demands.

“Don’t worry, she’s never going to replace you.”

Maxwell laughs. “You’re insane. You know that, right? I’m not jealous, and I’m not worried about getting replaced. Believe it or not, I don’t find any of them particularly threatening in any sort of way, and that extends to the possibility that they might snatch up my best friend and keep him as their own.”

“Awww, I’m your best friend?”

“Well, I’m yours, so you’d better hope it goes both ways.”

Before Jacobi can fire off a retort, there’s a knock at the door. 

“Maxwell? Jacobi? Are you in there?” calls a voice from the other side. 

It’s Kepler, obviously, because there’s no reason that any of the _Hephaestus_ crew would be coming over to Maxwell and Jacobi’s sleeping quarters, unless Maxwell really was dating the AI and wanted her to come try out the nearly-finished prototype android body stashed in pieces around the room.

“Finally decided to put us to work,” Jacobi says under his breath. Not maliciously—he really is grateful to Kepler for giving them some downtime—but not loud enough that Kepler could hear from outside.

“Yeah,” Maxwell calls back. “Yeah, we’re in here.”

Kepler opens the door and swings himself through it with an agility that amazes Jacobi. It’s not that Jacobi’s bad at moving in zero-g—if you’re part of SI-5, you’re not allowed to be _bad_ at anything—but he still tries to navigate as if he’s on Earth. Kepler seems to have bypassed that step entirely, adapting to this new environment’s mechanics as easily as if he was born here. 

_Survival of the fittest,_ Jacobi thinks, and then he thinks about his blurry vision and his runaway glasses and how he sacrifices the comfort of his eyesight to not have to deal with the issue of zero-gravity rendering those glasses almost always off of his face. He thinks of Maxwell, of her foresight and planning, of her glasses held around her neck by a chain, and he frowns. He asks himself if he enjoyed spending the day with Eiffel while Maxwell busied herself with board games, and he doesn’t let himself answer in the affirmative. He thinks about Lovelace, about how she’s a genuinely fun person to be around, and he almost manages to stop himself from seeing her in an SI-5 uniform. It’d suit her well.

He knows he’s not the good guy in this story. _Survival of the fittest_ , he thinks _, is a platitude made for Isabel Lovelace_ , and he gives Kepler his full attention.

“Family dinner,” Kepler says. “Everyone. On the _Hephaestus_. In fifteen minutes, so freshen up!”

Jacobi opens his mouth to complain, closes it, and then opens it again. “Why?”

“Because,” Kepler says, as if it should be obvious, “it’s new year’s eve. Also, to boost a feeling of camaraderie.”

“New year’s eve?” Maxwell asks

“Yeah, you know, the day before a year becomes another year,” Jacobi says.

“Shut up,” she says, low enough that Kepler shouldn’t be able to hear it. 

Kepler does, though, and frowns disapprovingly. “We have to set a good example for those people,” he instructs. “A fighting crew does not a well-running station make.”

“With all due respect,” Jacobi says, pretty much no respect in his voice, “do you really think this is gonna end with anything _other_ than fighting? The other times you’ve tried to do group meals have ended... poorly, to say the least.” 

Kepler claps his hands together tightly. “I’ll have it all under control. But, really, you two _do_ need to set an example. So, Maxwell, that means less antagonizing Jacobi, and Jacobi, that means less antagonizing everyone else.”

“Hey!” Jacobi protests. “I only antagonize Eiffel. And Hera. And… okay, I guess I antagonize Minkowski too, but not _that_ much.”

“Well, don’t go developing a crush on Captain Lovelace,” Kepler says, and the worst part about it is that Jacobi is almost positive that Kepler’s being dead serious.

“I promise you that you don’t need to worry about that,” Jacobi assures him.

“Do we need to put on nice clothes?” Maxwell asks, sounding a lot like she doesn’t want to hear the answer she’s positive she’s about to receive.

“It’d be preferable,” Kepler says, and Jacobi knows he and Maxwell are both hearing _yes, it’s mandatory_ . “I had you two pack them for a reason, didn’t I? We wouldn’t want that going to waste. Now, I’m going to go finish getting ready, and I expect to see you both on the _Hephaestus_ in ten minutes.”

“Didn’t you just say dinner was in fifteen?”

“Yes. Come on, you don’t want the rest of the crew to one-up you in terms of punctuality, do you, Dr. Maxwell?”

“I suppose not,” Maxwell says, and Jacobi nearly laughs at how much she does not care.

Kepler notices, of course, but he doesn’t point out her tone. Instead, he gives them another reminder about running the ship and playing the crew, and takes his leave.

As soon as the door is closed behind him, Maxwell slumps mid-air. “I really thought I wouldn’t have to wear that stupid dress ever,” she complains. “It’s space. It’s outer space. Who are we dressing to impress?”

“The aliens,” Jacobi says, waving his fingers in front of his face and making a wobbly little _ooo_ noise, and Maxwell laughs.

“Don’t even joke. Where’d I put the clothes that I never thought I’d have to wear and that I was almost positive Kepler had made me pack on a complete lark?”

“Gee, Maxwell, almost sounds like you’re upset with the Colonel.”

She pulls herself upwards, rummaging around through drawers strapped to the ceiling to find the clothes she’s looking for. “Well, a little! It’s dumb. It’s new year’s eve, sure, but the new year means even less up here than it does on Earth, and it means shockingly little on Earth. I’m sure I could pull up the statistics on new year's resolutions and how they’re absolute hogwash and that no one follows through on them and that everyone feels bad about not following through them and that it promotes a false culture of self-improvement to which everyone will always feel like they’re playing catch-up despite that simply not being the case in reality, but we only have ten minutes to get to dinner, so I do not have the time.”

“Don’t worry,” Jacobi assures her, “Even if you don’t spend any time getting all dolled up, Hera’ll think you’re the prettiest belle at the ball.”

“For the last time, Daniel, I don’t have a crush on the AI.” Maxwell pulls out her dress, a knee-length yellow number with long sleeves and blue swirls coming up from the bottom, and tries to whack Jacobi with it. 

He floats out of range. “Cute dress,” he says.

“Thanks. Matches my hair,” she replies, pointing to the dyed blue bits in her two buns. “Unintentional, but a very happy accident. Okay, turn around, I’m changing.”

He obliges, and goes through his stuff to pull out his own nice clothes—a blue button-up shirt and a sensible pair of black pants. Changing in zero-g is a struggle, and it takes him longer than he’d care to admit to wrangle himself into his outfit, but he still fares markedly better than Maxwell does.

When he looks back, he sees her rotating in a slow flip through the air, hand grabbing at the back of her dress. “Stupid zipper,” she grumbles.

“Do you need my help?” Jacobi manages to get his offer out through the laughter bubbling up inside of him.

“No,” she says. “No, I’m– I’m fine, I got it. I’m a– I’m a strong independent woman.”

“Riiight. Cool. That you are. Then I’m just gonna head out now,” Jacobi says, buttoning the last button on his shirt. “See you at family dinner.”

He pulls himself towards the door at the rate of molasses sliding down a nearly-horizontal surface. Before he gets all the way out, Maxwell shouts, “Fine! Yes, come help me with my zipper.”

He leans sideways against the frame of the door to their sleeping quarters. “Aw,” he teases, “I thought you were fine? I thought you got it on your own? I thought you didn’t need a man?”

“You’re more of a boy, really,” Maxwell sneers.

Jacobi kicks off the wall and floats over to her. “I think that’s what they call a microaggression,” he says, zipping up her dress. He gives her a small pat on the shoulder. “All good now.”

“Can’t be a microaggression if I’m trans, too,” she says. 

“Ugh, whatever.”

Maxwell laughs and takes his arm. “Ready for dinner?” 

They pull themselves out of their sleeping quarters together. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Jacobi says. “SI-5 didn’t train me for this shit. Bombs, heists, assassinations, just another day. But dinner? Where I have to _behave_ myself? I professionally do not behave myself. Like, it’s my job to professionally not behave myself.”

“You’re a bad boy, we get it.”

Jacobi knocks his hip against hers. “Shut up, you nerd.”

There’s a ledge where the _Urania_ meets the _Hephaestus_. It’s inconsequential, obviously; there’s no gravity, so there’s no risk of tripping over it.

Still. Still, Jacobi thinks of Maxwell saying she enjoyed playing Funzo with the women of the _Hephaestus_ , reminds himself to be a professional and to not care about that crew any more than he absolutely has to, and takes extra care to not stumble over that little ledge. 

It’s so small. Barely even visible. Would he have known it was there had she not pointed it out to him?

“Your dress tickles my legs when it brushes against me,” Jacobi complains. “Do you have shorts on under it?”

“No, Jacobi, I packed a dress without shorts to go take a trip up to space where there’s no gravity. Yes, I have shorts on under it, and no, I won’t tuck my dress into them for your comfort.”

“Not very accommodating, are you?”

“When have I ever been?”

“For me you make exceptions.”

Maxwell bites the inside of her cheek, lips twisting. She releases it with a smile. “Maybe on occasion.”

There’s a table strapped to the floor of the _Hephaestus_ , and Kepler is standing next to it, feet hooked under one of the many bars that litter the interior of the space station’s hull, a stupid but endearing cowboy hat kept attached to his head by a string going under his chin. “Glad to see you two be punctual,” he says. “And matching?”

“Huh? Oh, the blue clothes,” Jacobi says. “That wasn’t intentional, but yeah.

“It’s cute,” Kepler says. “Like those identical twins whose parents force them into the same outfits.”

“We don’t even loo— whatever. You, uh, you look good yourself, sir,” Jacobi says, feeling Maxwell’s grip on his arm tighten to the point of the first twinges of pain.

“Why, thank you, Mr. Jacobi,” Kepler says. One of the sleeves on his clean white shirt is already cuffed, and he cuffs the other one, finishing the fold with a sharp downwards tug. “Come, help me set the table. I already attached Velcro in the necessary places, so it’s just a matter of setting things down.”

The three of them finish getting the place ready together in a silence broken only by Kepler’s humming, and just in time, too. As soon as Jacobi finishes placing down the last plate, he hears a low whistle from across the room.

“Wow,” comes a familiar drawl from the doorway. Isabel Lovelace is wearing a pair of dress pants that are just a little bit too large for her and a clean white tank top, and Jacobi has to admit that she looks fantastic.

“Come on in, Captain,” Kepler says. “You too, Lieutenant. No hiding back there.”

Lovelace enters, and Minkowski follows behind, looking very much displeased with this situation. She’s in a lavender blouse and a long black pencil skirt, and she seems to be regretting that choice very much, because it’s a bit hard to navigate with her legs held close together.

“No surprise Minkowski packed nice clothes for a fucking space mission,” Jacobi whispers to Maxwell.

Maxwell bites her knuckle to keep herself from laughing. “Pretty sure those are her pants on Lovelace, too. See how it doesn’t fit quite right?”

“Jesus,” Jacobi says. “ So she packed a nice shirt and two different nice bottoms. She’s really something else.”

“A veritable Kepler,” Maxwell agrees, and she’s not wrong. From what he’s seen, Minkowski and Kepler are dangerously similar. They’ve both got a fierce desire to prove themselves as leaders and protect their crew. Jacobi knows he wouldn’t want to be caught between the two of them going head-to-head. He’s positive it would end with someone dying.

“You guys look good,” Hera says to the newcomers.

“And I’m sure you would, too,” Minkowski tells her.

“You can’t see me, but _I_ can see m–me, and I’m wearing a romper, and I look adorable,” Hera announces. “Truly, you’re all missing out on an experience.”

“I’m sure she does. And Hera had to wait until _they_ arrived to compliment all of us?” Maxwell complains under her breath.

“Calm your crush down,” Jacobi says, and Maxwell elbows him in the side.

“We’re still missing someone,” Kepler says.

“Two someones,” Minkowski replies.

“One someone,” Kepler corrects. “I told Dr. Hilbert that he could take the night off. He’s in his quarters. He knows better than to try anything while he’s alone, because he knows if he does, Hera here will whisper it over to me, and then he’ll be in big trouble. I’m sure you don’t have any issue with that arrangement?”

Begrudgingly, Minkowski shakes her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Officer Eiffel will be here in a m–moment,” Hera assures them. “He went on the search for n–nice clothes, but he didn’t pack any, so—”

“See?” Lovelace says, throwing her hands into the air. “It’s very sane of me to have not brought dress clothes with me to outer space.”

“Lovelace,” Minkowski says, slowly and carefully. “I feel like you’re not winning any battles by aligning yourself with Eiffel on the preparedness front.”

Before Lovelace can retaliate, a voice from far away says, “I’m here! I’m here, I’m coming, I’m here.” It gets louder as Eiffel gets closer, pulling himself at an impressive speed into the room. He grabs a bar on the wall and pulls himself to a screeching halt. “Happy almost new year, folks.”  
“Wow, Eiffel,” Jacobi says. He tries to impart as much judgment as humanly possible into his voice. “Really took the dress code seriously, didn’t you?”

“Do you honestly not have a shirt any nicer than a _live long and prosper_ shirt?” Minkowski demands.

“I thought it was a nice message for going into the new year!”

“And you brought jeans to space? Why the fuck would you bring _jeans_ to space?”

“They’re a step up from the Goddard jumpsuit, or from sweatpants. Besides, I brought them because they’re comfy,” Eiffel shrugs. “I sleep in them sometimes. ”

“That’s true,” Hera confirms.

“That’s terrifying,” Lovelace says.

“Besides,” Eiffel continues, “why would I bring nice clothes to space? You folks are a little bit crazy for that. You have to admit it. Lovelace didn’t bring them, either. She’s wearing Minkowski’s spare pants. Why aren’t you all on her for that?”

“Because I still look somewhat presentable,” Lovelace answers. “Eiffel, your shirt is so wrinkled.”

“Well, damn, I don’t have access to an iron up here!”

“Let’s eat!” Kepler says, clapping his hands together. “Come on, come on, take your seat, everyone. I’ll go grab the food. Dr. Maxwell, would you lend me a hand with that? Officer Eiffel, you can come, too.”

The three of them float off to get food, and Jacobi is left feeling a bit like a high schooler at a party whose friends have all drifted elsewhere. Of everyone here, he’s most comfortable with Lovelace, but he doesn’t need her to know that. In fact, none of them need to know that he’s feeling a bit out of his element, so he pulls himself into the nearest seat and straps himself down.

Lovelace is quick to follow, sitting as across from Jacobi as the circular table grants, and Minkowski sits at her right. It’s strange to be looking at them like this, a mockery of what a dinner might be like on Earth. Minkowski’s hair is in its eternal low ponytail, and it flies up and out, haloing her in curls. Lovelace’s bun imitates gravity a bit better, but flyaways that fall upwards still betray the fact that their situation is as far from normal as it could possibly get.

“So,” Lovelace says, leaning forward. “This whole thing was Kepler’s idea?”

“Yeah,” Jacobi says. “He’s always wanting me and Maxwell to celebrate more holidays with him, and the two of us are pretty heavily against Christmas, so he goes a bit over the top for the new year.”

“We’re also an anti-Christmas crew,” Minkowski says, looking weirdly suspicious.

“Oh, you’re Jewish, too?” Jacobi asks.

“No,” Minkowski blinks. “I mean, I am, I guess—not that I’m devout—but they’re not.”

“AIs don’t have religions,” Hera says.

“And I was raised very Catholic,” Lovelace adds, raising her hand. “No, we’re an anti-Christmas crew because December 25th is Eiffel’s birthday.”

“Oh,” Jacobi says. “Right.”

The table lapses into quiet once again. Jacobi thinks that this is going to be a very long and very difficult meal. A mockery of what a dinner might be on Earth. Yeah, right. Take away the fact that he introduced himself by murdering the weird little plant thing the crew had made their pet, the plot he’s sure the _Hephaestus_ crew is hatching, and the fact that they’re all nearly eight lightyears away from terra firma, and Jacobi’s almost left with a nice, normal family.

They could be that. Maybe. Jacobi doesn’t want to let himself think about that for too long, but if they just managed to talk the _Hephaestus_ crew over to their side, he wouldn’t have to feel so mixed up about wanting to be friends with them. They could have meals together that didn’t end in strained tensions or threats of violence. They could be a team.

His thoughts are interrupted by Kepler, Maxwell, and Eiffel coming back to the table, arms full with packets of food. “It’s the closest we’re going to get to a real meal,” Kepler says, spreading it out across the table. “And we don’t have any champagne, but we do have apple cider that used to be sparkling and is now not.”  
“Practically the same thing,” Lovelace deadpans.

Maxwell slips into the chair on Jacobi’s right, and Kepler fills in the spot between her and Lovelace. Eiffel takes the last remaining chair and attempts to scootch it more towards Minkowski and away from Jacobi before realizing that Kepler’s done a good job of attaching it to the ground and that it isn’t going anywhere.

“I don’t bite,” Jacobi says. “Honestly, I feel like Minkowski’s more likely to do that than I am.”

Eiffel looks like he’s not sure if, legally, he’s allowed to laugh at that.

Lovelace breaks the tense silence first. “Well,” she announces, “I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who was trained to say grace before my meals, and I haven’t done that since I was, like, seventeen, so. I’m just gonna eat.”

Space food kind of really sucks. And Jacobi’s had a while to get used to it, but he still thinks it sucks. This is admittedly better space food than usual, but it’s space food nonetheless, and nonetheless, it sucks. He doesn’t complain, though. He knows he’s not supposed to. Besides, drinking orbs of formerly-sparkling-and-now-flat apple cider out of the air is really, really fun. 

Before long, there’s some light chatter around the table. Maxwell’s telling Hera about the android body in her sleeping quarters, and about how, one day, Hera might be able to inhabit it. Across the table, Lovelace and Kepler seem to be engaged in an argument about pizza—he knows Lovelace is from New York, and Kepler is a fervent defender of his hometown’s deep-dish style—much to Minkowski’s displeasure. She looks like she’d rather be doing anything other than mediating this debate, but that she cannot, in good conscience, extract herself, lest flying words turn to flying fists. 

And that leaves Jacobi with Eiffel.

“Happy late birthday,” he says, and Eiffel starts a bit at that.

“Wh—sorry, gimme a sec.” Eiffel holds up a hand and swallows the bite of food in his mouth. “Okay, cool. Uh, thanks. How’d you know?”

Jacobi gestures vaguely over to where Minkowski has a calming hand placed on Lovelace’s shoulder. “They told me. Fun Christmas gift.”

Eiffel puffs out a breath. “Yeah, no, it isn’t. Really shitty one, actually.”

“I wouldn’t know. Never got any Christmas gifts.”

“What, are we unlocking your deep and tragic backstory tonight?”

Jacobi laughs, short and clipped. “Hell no. Unless being Jewish is deep and tragic to you.”

“I feel like there’s not really any right way for me to respond to that one,” Eiffel says. “Like, I did pass Global History when I was in high school, soooooo…”

“Fair,” Jacobi shrugs. 

“Yeah, but being born on Christmas pretty much blows. You know the amount of times I’ve had people try to give me one gift and say it counts as a gift for both holidays? Four! Four times! And, in my personal opinion, that is five times too many for someone to be a lazy-ass cheapskate for me.”

“Maxwell was born on a holiday, too,” Jacobi says. He tries to hold back a grin, but he can’t. “Hey– hey Maxwell,” he says, pulling her out of her discussion with Hera. “Wanna tell Eiffel what holiday you were born on?”

“I’d rather die, and also I hate you,” Maxwell shoots back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was just about to explain the water-resistance of this body prototype to Hera.”

“Anniversary of a stupid webcomic that she was briefly very into,” Jacobi explains. “Not a real holiday.”

“Ah,” Eiffel says. “I get it.” He does not really look like he gets it. “Are you two always so…”

“So what?”

“So… close?”

“I think we’re as close as any two colleagues who have been working together for three years would normally be,” Jacobi says, crossing his arms. It’s not that he’s trying to hide anything from Eiffel, because that would be ridiculous, but he also doesn’t need Eiffel thinking that anyone has anything more than a strictly professional relationship going on. That’s an advantage that doesn’t need to be granted to the other side. Maxwell is a weakness that Jacobi will try his damndest to hide and to protect.

“It’s just, if I told Minkowski—” he pronounces it wrong, and Jacobi kind of wants to slap him, because it really is not that difficult “—or Lovelace that I hated them, they’d probably kill me. Or at least deck me.”

“They’re your superior officers.”

“Okay. True. But if I told Hera I hated her, she’d also probably kill me.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Hera jumps in. “I’d drop the temperature in your room to a deeply uncomfortable level, and I’d give you little electric sh–shocks at any given opportunity, and I’d attempt to mess up your comms equipment as much as my programming allows, but I wouldn’t k–kill you.”

“Don’t you have a conversation to be had with Maxwell about robots, or something?” Eiffel asks. There’s nothing but sweetness in his voice, though.

Hera _tsks_ affectionately.

“Well,” Jacobi says. He spreads his hands out in front of him, palms up. “Are you two always so close?” he echoes.  
Eiffel rolls his eyes.

There’s a dinging from the other side of the table, and Jacobi’s attention is dragged from whatever remark he was going to make to Kepler, hitting a large chunk of freeze-dried food against the table.

Once the room is pretty much silent, Kepler smiles. “Let’s go around and say our new year’s resolutions.”

Next to Jacobi, Eiffel groans. Jacobi feels that sentiment deep in his heart.

“I’ll start,” Kepler continues, “and we can go clockwise. My new year's resolution is to let myself sleep in just a bit more.”

“Oh, me?” Maxwell asks. “Uh, my resolution is to finish building that body I was talking about.”

“The hell?” Minkowski asks.

“Robot thing,” Maxwell simplifies with a wave of her hand. “Not an organic body.”

“This is just like that _Buffy_ episode,” Eiffel says, and Lovelace and Maxwell both gasp.

“You’ve watched _Buffy_?” they say in tandem, though Maxwell sounds a lot more shocked than Lovelace does.

“Hell yeah I have. Mr. Pointy, yellow crayons, the whole five-by-five yards.”

“What’s your favorite season?” Maxwell asks, leaning in. “Jacobi refuses to sit down and actually watch it with me. He half pays attention if I have it on in the background while we’re working, but that doesn’t count, and Kepler hasn’t watched a single episode, and neither have any of the other people I’ve gotten to know relatively well at Goddard, but I honestly don’t really have a lot of interaction with people other than Kepler and Jacobi, so I haven’t had a good _Buffy_ conversation with someone in years.”

“Hey!” Jacobi protests. “I’ll sit down and watch with you at some point. Probably. And that’s a promise.”

“Oh, three is my favorite season,” Lovelace says, ignoring Jacobi entirely. “C’mon. Almost every episode was solid, the Mayor is a fun as hell villain, and, I mean, Faith Lehane.”

“Faith Lehane,” Maxwell agrees. “She was one of the first women I ever fell in love with.”

“Understandable,” Lovelace nods.

“Understandable,” Eiffel seconds.

Kepler clears his throat.

“Right,” Maxwell says. “Sorry. Yeah. So. That’s my resolution. Finish building a body, though not of the Adam variety.” At Kepler’s confused look, she explains, “ _Buffy_ reference.”

It’s Jacobi’s turn now, and he doesn’t exactly have a resolution, because he’s never really kept them, and there’s not a point to making one if he knows he’s not going to keep it. Saying nothing isn’t an option, though, and he really wishes Kepler had warned them that this was going to happen beforehand so that Jacobi could have prepared an answer.

Still. He’s not about to flail under pressure. He doesn’t do that. He’s better than that. So he pulls himself together and says, “My resolution is to get a bit better at what I do, have a little more fun with my work, and start watching _Buffy_ with Maxwell. Only if I have the free time to do so,” he’s quick to add, shooting a glance in Kepler’s direction.

“Jesus,” Maxwell breathes, quiet enough that no one else hears. 

Jacobi kicks her shin under the table. “And to kill less plant monsters,” he tacks on to the end, because it’s kind of funny to see Minkowski look like she’s about to explode, especially while she’s decked out in her dress clothes. He fiddles with his collar and flashes her a grin.

“Mine’s to spend more time talking to Hera,” Eiffel says. “I’ve been swamped with work lately, and I miss you, babe!”

“Awww, Officer Eiffel,” Hera says. “You’re sweet. Mine’s to pay a little m–more attention to you when we’re talking. And, really, that’s a compliment, because I’m always focusing on a million things at once, so there’s no world in which I’m ever fully p–paying attention to you.”

“I’ll take it!” Eiffel says. “Not sure if I should be okay with taking it, but take it I will!”

Minkowski puts her head in her hands. “Christ,” she groans, voice muffled by her palms. “What a crew.”

“Your turn to share, Lieutenant,” Kepler says.

She shoots him something that Jacobi’s pretty sure started out as a smile, but that’s fallen ass-first into being a sneer. “My new year’s resolution is to work out once more a week on average. Boring. Simple. Concrete. Achievable.”

“Sounds like you’re pitching a crappy apartment complex,” Jacobi laughs.

Minkowski’s glare is deadly.

“What did we say about antagonizing people, Mr. Jacobi?” Kepler asks. His voice is light and cheerful, but Jacobi knows he means business.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Eiffel sing-songs. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Force of… how recently were you in middle school?”

“It’s my turn!” Lovelace says, slamming her hands to the table. It’s surprisingly loud, and Jacobi nearly jumps. “My resolution is to sharpen up my chess skills.”

“Fancy a rematch?” Kepler asks, amused.

“I think I can take you,” Lovelace answers.

“I can help teach you,” Minkowski jumps in. “I’m quite good at chess.”

As they devolve into arguments, Maxwell turns to Jacobi. “So, Lovelace and Minkowski,” she whispers into his ear. “You think the two of them were always like this? Or is it a recent development?” 

“What, at each other’s throats?”

“Infatuated with each other,” Maxwell corrects, and Jacobi does a double-take.

“You’re serious. You’re not kidding? They kind of hate each other. Not all the time, I’ll grant you, but it pops up from time to time.” He gestures at the scene in front of them, at the conversation between Kepler, Lovelace, and Minkowski that has quickly become its own isolated event. Next to them, Eiffel busies himself with chatting with Hera, apparently also deciding he doesn’t need to get involved in whatever’s going down over at the grown-ups’ end of the table.

“Yeah, but I hate you from time to time. That doesn’t mean I don’t still consider you to be like family. Ergo, that doesn’t mean they can’t still be into each other.”

“Minkowski has a husband.”

“That she hasn’t seen in two years,” Maxwell retorts. “Who thinks she’s dead, even if she doesn’t know that.”

Jacobi watches Minkowski, watches the way she puts her hand over Lovelace’s, watches the way Lovelace positions herself in between Minkowski and Kepler. It’s—well, it’s certainly something. He’s not entirely sure the two women know how protective of each other their body language reveals them to be.

“Okay, well, they’re real people, Maxwell, and we talked about getting invested in these folks. About how that wasn’t happening. Remember?”

Maxwell sticks her tongue out at him and goes back to eating her slightly-less-shitty-than-usual dinner.

There’s a repeat of the clinking sound from across the table. “Five minutes to midnight on Earth,” Kepler announces, brandishing an old and rather clunky analog watch.

Minkowski frowns. “No,” she says, “it’s not for another three hours.”

“You both have watches that tell Earth time?” Eiffel asks.

Minkowski and Kepler give him twin _of course I do_ looks, and Jacobi has to bite his tongue to keep himself from laughing. He isn’t sure which one of the two crew leaders would hate it more if he told them just how similar they are. Two brave, stubborn people and their endlessly devoted crew. Because, even if Minkowski doesn’t know it, and even if her crew members don’t express it as clearly, she’s got a firm grip over the station. Eiffel and Hera and, yes, Lovelace, trust her to be their leader. It’s an affection Jacobi sees mirrored clear as day with himself and Maxwell and Kepler. They’re family.

“Ah. You spent most of your childhood in California, didn’t you, Lieutenant? So you’d be on Pacific time?” Kepler asks Minkowski.

“Yes,” she answers, voice icy and curt.

“The watch that I’ve got here is set to Eastern,” he explains. “After all, that’s where Canaveral is, so I thought it would be a good point of reference for all of us, seeing as we hail from a variety of timezones as individuals.”

“How judicious,” Minkowski says.

“I mean, that’s a fair point,” Lovelace admits, and Eiffel nods his assent.

“I have an internal c–clock that’s set to Eastern Standard Time as well,” Hera says.

“So we’re all agreed, then,” Jacobi says. “Midnight in five—” he glances at the watch that Kepler’s still holding up “—in four minutes. Not that it matters either way because, you know, _space_ , but glad we got our argues out for the day over that.”

“Got our argues out for the day? Are you a toddler?” Minkowski asks.

“Hey,” Eiffel says. He leans forward and extends his arms, creating dividers between Jacobi and Minkowski. “Can’t all of our collective new year’s resolutions be to get along a little more?”

“This isn’t a DCOM, Eiffel.”

“Is that more military lingo? ‘Cause I was never military like the rest of you guys. I do know a few acronyms, though, like snafu being situation normal all fucked up.”

Jacobi presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose and exhales. “Yeah, thanks, Eiffel. I knew that, too. And I was never military, either. DCOM means Disney Channel Original Movie, but you can just. Like. Pretend that I didn’t say that.”

“I’m going to decidedly not do that,” Maxwell grins.

“Yeah, I’m with her,” Eiffel agrees, jabbing a thumb in Maxwell’s direction. “DCOM. All the cool kids these days watch DCOMs.”

“Right, because you epitomize being cool,” drawls Jacobi.

Eiffel huffs indignantly. “I’m making the conscious choice to ignore your sarcasm. Yes, I do.”

Over mixed noises of amusement and frustration, Lovelace sighs. “I’ve gone, what, five years without watching the ball drop on new year’s eve? Never thought I’d miss that insanity.”

“New Yorkers,” Kepler says deridingly.

“Hey. I’m not saying I went to that shit in person. I’d rather die than actually go to that shit in person. Visiting Times Square to watch the ball drop is for tourists and idiots, and I am unequivocally neither. Watching it on television, though, is weirdly addictive. Every year I’d say I wasn’t going to watch it, and then every year I’d end up watching it. There’s something kinda sweet about looking at a ton of strangers drunkenly make out in a pool of some Midwestern tourist’s vomit.”

“How romantic,” Kepler says flatly.

“A little, yeah! Kissing my girlfriend at midnight was always kitschy but lovely.”

“You have a girlfriend?” Minkowski asks. Her voice is a little bit too high, and, just like the ledge between the _Hephaestus_ and the _Urania_ , Jacobi isn’t sure he’d have noticed it had Minkowski and Lovelace’s interactions not been pointed out to him. He’s not sure he would have cared. Now, though, he feels himself lean in just a bit, feels Maxwell’s hand on his knee, feels himself tripping. Hopes he can catch himself before he falls.

“I did,” Lovelace answers. “I’ve had quite a few over the years.”

“Huh,” Minkowski says. “I didn’t– well, you’re brave to– I’m glad that you, er.” She coughs a little into her hand, and Jacobi is maybe three seconds from actually crying. “I’m glad that you found it fit to share that with us, Captain.”

Lovelace gives her a pointed look. “Any time, Lieutenant.”

“Jesus Christ,” Maxwell groans under her breath to Jacobi, who somehow manages to prevent himself from laughing. His mouth twitches, and he’s pretty sure Minkowski catches it, but he’s also pretty sure she thinks it’s just him being his typically smarmy and assholish self. It’s for the better that she does, probably.

“Thirty seconds to the new year!” Hera informs the crew.

“You’re my kiss,” Jacobi tells Maxwell.

“Would not have expected anything to the contrary,” she responds, cutting her eyes over to Kepler. At Jacobi’s pained expression, she laughs. “Oh, c’mon, don’t give me that look. You can’t tell me you got your hopes up?”

“I’d never,” he says, crossing his arms and lifting his chin. “I’m smarter than that.”

Maxwell pats his knee comfortingly and begins the countdown from ten on Hera’s mark. “Ten, nine, eight,” she says, and Jacobi pulls her in a little closer to his side. He’s not used to being this affectionate with her in front of anyone other than Kepler, the arm he has around her shoulders feels almost like a defiant act under the gazes of the _Hephaestus_ crew.

“Seven, six,” Eiffel says. He unstraps himself from his seat and kicks over to the nearest wall.

“Five, four,” says Minkowski, shoulders up, gaze focused on a point on the wall behind Jacobi’s shoulder, a point that decidedly isn’t Lovelace and her loose posture and her grin and her calming countdown voice.

“Three, two.” Kepler is somewhere between expectant and bored, and Jacobi kind of wants to grab him and scream, _do you care about these people, too? Do you wish there was another way? Do you think we could change things if we wanted to?,_ and Jacobi kind of wants to kiss him, and Jacobi knows that if push came to shove, there’s no way in hell he’d put the crew around him in front of Kepler, so this is all a moot point anyway. Hypotheticals, speculation. Jacobi doesn’t deal in variables. Jacobi doesn’t solve for x.

“One,” Hera says. She plays the sound of a party horn lightly over the speakers.

“Happy New Year!” everyone shouts together, and, for a moment, all the tension in the room dissipates. They’re just six people and one AI unit trapped seven-point-eight lightyears from home, and they’ve made it this far. None of them can know for sure what the next year will bring, but, for better or worse, they’re going to be facing it together.

Eiffel presses a dramatic kiss to the hull of the ship, and Hera laughs. “Thanks, Officer Eiffel,” she says, and he grins wider than Jacobi’s seen him grin in all of their time together.

Kepler gives himself a little pat on the back, which is beyond ridiculous, and it kind of makes Jacobi’s vision go red for just a split second, but it’s nowhere near as insanity-inducing as Minkowski stiffly turning to Lovelace and sticking out her hand.

“You… okay,” Lovelace says, sounding like she’s never been more begrudgingly resigned to anything in her life. “Happy New Year, Commander.”

Jacobi thinks that, just this once, he doesn’t need to call out that slip of the tongue. And Kepler either must think the same thing or must have simply missed it, because he doesn’t politely inform Lovelace that she should be referring to Minkowski as _Lieutenant_ now.

Minkowski smiles. It’s not a very big one, but it’s a real one. “You too, Isabel. You too.”

Jacobi feels his heart swelling in his chest, and he so wishes he could pop it. And, honestly, damn Maxwell. Damn Maxwell and her observations. Damn Maxwell and her scientific fucking method. Isn’t she supposed to be the most clinical of them all? Computers, programming, determinism. Jacobi is flint and sparks. Maxwell shouldn’t have ignited this unhealthy affection he feels for Minkowski and Lovelace and Eiffel and Hera. Maxwell shouldn’t have thrown a wrench in his plan to keep his head down and to keep his heart chained up.

But that’s what she does. That’s what she’s been doing since they first met. Maxwell brings out the humanity in himself that he likes to pretend doesn’t still exist.

Maxwell tugs Jacobi downwards—she’s a lot smaller than he is, even sitting down—and ruffles his hair. “Happy new year, Daniel,” she says.

“Happy new year, Alana.” He presses a quick kiss to her cheek, nose bumping against her glasses and nearly sending them askew. That chain around her neck holds them in place, though. Keeps them as attached to her as he is.

Kepler breaks the mood of the room with a cough. “I’m glad we all had a good dinner. I’m glad we’re going into the new year as a productive crew,” he says, and Jacobi is reminded of why, on rare occasions, he feels the deep and unrelenting urge to lock Kepler alone in a room with a bomb that simply cannot be diffused.

“Me, too,” Minkowski agrees, and Lovelace looks like she shares Jacobi’s sentiment. 

“And on that note, I think we should call it a night,” Kepler decides. “Just because it’s a new year does not mean it’s a new work rotation schedule, and sleep-deprived crew members do not make efficient crew members.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Lovelace says.

“This may not be how you ran your ship, Captain, but it’s how I’m running mine.”

“ _For fuck’s sake_ ,” Lovelace says again, much more vehemently this time, and Jacobi can’t be sure, because it’s hard to tell across the table, but he’s almost positive he sees Minkowski put her hand on Lovelace’s thigh to calm her down.

“Early bedtime sounds good to me,” Eiffel says.

Hera laughs. “Okay, night owl,” she says.

“I can be a morning person if I want to be!”

“All evidence points very strongly to the contrary,” Minkowski says drily.

Eiffel spreads his hands wide. “New year, new me.” He announces the platitude like speaking it is signing it into law, and he pushes off the wall. He goes soaring over the table with practiced ease, turning around mid-air so that he flies head-first and backward out of the room and down the hall that must lead to the _Hephaestus_ ’s crew’s sleeping quarters.

“Well,” Maxwell says. “I think that’s it, then. Party’s over. Jacobi, you heading back with me, or do you want to hang at the grown-up’s table for a bit longer?”

Lovelace stifles a laugh. “C’mon, we’re not that old.”

“You’re ten years my senior,” Maxwell says, and Lovelace blinks, shocked. “I know, I’ve always been told I seem older than I am.”

“Damn. I guess we really are the grown-up’s table.”

“Hey. I’m not a kid,” Jacobi says, and the moment he closes his mouth he realizes how ridiculously petulant he sounds.

“Oh, no, you’re the teenager going through his no-one-understands-me phase,” Maxwell teases, and Lovelace does not make any effort to cover up her amusement. Nor does Hera, her glitchy laughter ringing out loud and clear.

“Yeah, yeah. Hilarious,” Jacobi says, sarcastic as anything.

“A bit,” is Kepler’s earnest reply, and even Minkowski can’t hide the fact that her lips twitch up into a smile.

“Okay. Uncalled for. I’ll go back with you now, Maxwell. G’night,” Jacobi addresses the rest of the table. 

He and Maxwell leave together, arm in arm, and it does feel a bit like being a kid again. He imagines that this is how it might have been growing up if he’d had a sister. The chatter of Kepler, Minkowski, Lovelace, and Hera fade into nothingness behind them as they make their way towards the _Urania_.

“How’s it going back there, Hera?” Maxwell asks as soon as they’re out of earshot.

“Relatively okay,” Hera answers, and Jacobi starts. He sometimes forgets that Hera is always there, that Hera is pretty much everywhere at once, except for the places where they’ve removed her audio and visual intake capabilities. “No one’s tried to k–kill each other. Yet.”

“I hope that continues.”

“Same here,” Hera agrees. “You know, if I’m being honest, that was the most successful group meal we’ve had in a while. I’m pretty sure that, statistically, it had the lowest number of death threats issues, jokingly or otherwise, and the h–highest number of genuine statements of affection made cross-crew.”

“Cross-crew?”

“Yeah, from the _Urania_ group to the _Hephaestus_ group, and vice-versa.”

“Yay, bonding.” Jacobi does unenthusiastic jazz hands.

“You know, you could take at least just one thing seriously, Mr. Jacobi,” Hera berates.

“I take my job seriously, which is more than I can say about half the numbskulls on this station.”

“Don’t c–call my crew numbskulls,” Hera says, and she doesn’t have a mouth, but Jacobi can hear the frown in her voice.

“Didn’t we just laud ourselves for the low level of casualties we had at dinner?” Maxwell is exasperated, her grip on Jacobi’s arm tight. “Can’t that carry over for the rest of the night? No trouble in this could-be paradise, please.”

“Hm,” Jacobi says non-committally, but he knows Maxwell knows that’s the closest thing he’s giving to an apology in public.

“Oh, hang on, Colonel Kepler just unironically used the phrase _Protestant work ethic_ ,” Hera says. “I kind of think I have to delegate as much attention to how Lieutenant Mink–kowski is going to respond to this as physically possible. And, Dr. Maxwell?” Hera pauses, and it’s almost as if she’s taking in a breath. Her voice is borderline hesitant when she says, “H–happy new year.”

“You too, Hera,” Maxwell replies, sunshine and smiles, and Jacobi is so lost in seriously wondering about the ethics of dating the entire physical presence of your workplace that he almost manages to fall in zero-g when Maxwell tugs him along.

“So,” Jacobi says, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope. It’s either permission to grill me about this or permission to ramble about how Kepler looked in his tie. I’m one woman. I don’t have enough in me to deal with both tonight.”

“I'll just turn these off and never listen to anything you have to say ever again,” Jacobi says affectionately, tapping his hearing aids. “But fine. Let me ruminate on this choice. I’ll decide when we get back to our sleeping quarters.

There’s not much left of the _Hephaestus_ to make their way down, so they take their time, because Hera’s focusing back on Minkowski and Lovelace and Kepler, and the four of them could certainly argue their way through the next few hours without halt, so Jacobi isn’t really worried about Hera joining his and Maxwell’s conversation, or about Kepler coming up behind them on his return to the _Urania_. He and Maxwell chatter about space, about dinner, about the concept of new year’s resolutions. They talk about the body she’s building and if Hera could someday inhabit it. They talk about a future they’re ready to take on with their best friend by their side.

When they arrive at the small bump where the ship meets the station, Jacobi sticks out his hand and grabs a bar on the wall and pulls himself and Maxwell to a halt.

“You good?” she asks, looking up at him curiously.

“Um, yeah,” he says. He shakes his head violently, like a dog flicking water from its coat. Like he’s trying to get some pesky, nagging fly off of himself. “Just– I’m glad to have spent this year with you. And, uh, I’m glad to be able to spend another one with you.”

“Oh,” Maxwell says, and she smiles. “Thanks. I’m glad to be able to spend another year with you, too.”

Jacobi floats listlessly above that little ledge for just a second more, and then he pulls himself and Maxwell across it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! kudos/comments are always appreciated, and you can come find me @commaperson on twitter if you ever wanna chat about this crew


End file.
